[337] Mr. Willcox was born at Ostend, but of English and Scotch parentage, his second Christian name, McGhee, being that of his maternal grandfather. He, however, spent his boyhood at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he received the chief portion of his education. He represented the borough of Southampton for some years in Parliament, and died, 1862, at the age of 79.
[338] Mr. Anderson became member for his native borough, which he represented from 1846 to 1852. He took a great interest in developing the northern fisheries, and especially in forming a Shetland fishery Company, and in improving the condition of the people there. He died in 1868 at the age of 77.
[339] When I commenced business in London, Mr. Allan was one of my earliest friends, and our friendship remained unbroken until his death in September 1874. I can therefore, of my own knowledge, speak of the difficulties he had to encounter, and of the numerous obstacles to be overcome in establishing the vast business with which he was so long and so intimately associated. To establish agencies at the leading ports of India and China, open depôts for coals, erect docks and factories for the repairs of their ships, to bring the whole into systematic and harmonious working order, and, above all, to keep agencies remote from each other and far from home, under proper control, required a master mind of no common order, the more so that the system he organized was then entirely new. Mr. Allan was, however, in every way equal to this arduous duty; his industry was unwearied, his love for truth ever conspicuous, and, with these he combined the most unassuming and pleasing manners. His only failing consisted in believing all other men to be as upright as himself.
[340] The mean rate of the sailing-packets on the average for a considerable number of voyages to the Mediterranean had been 2·7 miles per hour, the average length of the voyage from Falmouth to Malta, Corfu, and back to Falmouth being three months. The first of the Admiralty steam-packets, the Meteor, left Falmouth on this service 5th February, 1830, and she performed the round in about half the time of the sailing-packets. The African, Carron, Columbia, Confiance, Echo, Firebrand, Hermes, and Messenger followed and were regularly employed in this Mediterranean mail service. The average length of the voyages of steamers during a period of two and a half years to Corfu and back to Falmouth, was about forty-seven days including all stoppages—twice at Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Malta—which consumed about thirteen out of the forty-seven days engaged on the voyage.
[341] “Scarcely has the wonder created in the world by the appearance of the Great Western and British Queen, begun to subside, when we are called upon to admire the rapid strides of enterprise by the notice of an iron steam-ship, the first of a line of steamers to ply between England and Calcutta, to be called The Queen of the East, 2618 tons, and 600 horse-power. This magnificent vessel is designed by Mr. W. D. Holmes, engineer to the Bengal Steam Committee, for a communication between England and India. Great praise is due to Captain Barber, late of the Honourable East India Company’s Service, the agent in London for the Steam Committee in Bengal, who has afforded every encouragement to Mr. Holmes in carrying forward his splendid undertaking. When these vessels are ready we understand the voyage between Falmouth and Calcutta will be made in thirty days.”—Times, 11th November, 1838.
[342] See Evidence, Committee of House of Commons, 1840, question 1411.
[343] 1st Line.—A line from England to Alexandria and back monthly, leaving England in the beginning of every month, and calling at Gibraltar and Malta, with a branch from Marseilles to Malta and back, conveying between those two ports the mails which are carried across France.
2nd Line.—A similar line from England to Alexandria and back monthly, leaving England in the middle of every month, with a similar branch between Marseilles and Malta.
3rd Line.—A line from Suez to Calcutta and Hong Kong and back monthly. This line will take the mails which have left England in the beginning of each month, and will touch at Aden and Point de Galle, whence one steamer will proceed by Madras to Calcutta, and another by Penang to Singapore and Hong Kong.
4th Line.—A similar line from Suez to Calcutta and Hong Kong and back monthly, conveying the mails which have left England in the middle of the month, and proceeding in like manner to Point de Galle, and thence by Madras to Calcutta, and by Penang to Singapore and Hong Kong.